Print edition for March 19, 2006

Hal Rothman laments the apathetic attitude that Nevadans maintain for government and the low expectations that they have for their elected officials: Clark County Recorder Fran Deane is only the latest. With the G-Sting trials of Dario Herrera and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey beginning, Kathy Augustine, the impeached state controller, claiming vindication and planning to run for higher office, and the array of ethics complaints of all kinds against all kinds of politicians, I want to know why we put up with this. Don't these people have the decency to resign?

Jon Ralston looks beyond the current court case to the long- standing culture of corruption: How do you define corruption when you are talking about politics, especially in Home Sweet Nevada?

Jeff Simpson on Pinnacle's smooth moves, including purchase of Trop parent: The Lake Charles, La., property, L'Auberge du Lac, is a resounding success, and the almost $800 million the company is investing in the two Missouri projects will be money well spent.

Raising glass to new heights: At first it was the chandeliers. Forty of them. Four-foot glass-and-steel sculptures created to hang above the audience at Mandalay Bay's now-defunct Latin-themed production show "Storm."

John Katsilometes says word around town is that Pure Management Group will engineer revamping of hot-spot Luxor club that was the rage when it opened in 1998.: And word around the clubs is that Pure Management Group is in the process of taking over Ra, which is bracing for an already announced revamping project that will include expanding and renaming the facility and giving it a new identity. Construction is scheduled to begin in June.

Letter: Democrats are held in contempt as well: The public holds the Democrats in almost as much contempt as the Republicans because they have done exactly nothing the past 5 years.

Campaign donors little-noted in Nevada: By J. Patrick Coolican; Those are questions asked by Yale Law professor Ian Ayres and his co-author Bruce Ackerman, who argue in their book, "Voting with Dollars" that campaign contributions should be made anonymously.

Letter: President's critics labeled 'liberal' too freely: The majority chooses to exercise freedom of choice and accept some ideas that tend to be conservative and others that tend to be liberal. The danger, in my opinion, is when the liberal or conservative thinking gets extreme, and shuts out a healthy exchange of opinions on an issue.

Letter: Bush should open his ears to the public: It's way past time for him to start listening, before he commits any more blunders. The Lou Dobbs show on CNN would be a good place to discover what Middle America is thinking.

Mean streets: David Kihara; At least 1.2 million people die in traffic accidents worldwide every year, according to the World Health Organization. That's roughly the equivalent of a 9/11 tragedy every day.

Evaluation of Rogers scheduled: At the direction of the regents' Board Development Committee, Regents Chairman Bret Whipple will be starting Rogers' annual evaluation this month. The results of that evaluation will be aired publicly during the June meeting.

Nuke firms seek support for Utah site: Benjamin Grove; The group of nuclear utilities known as Private Fuel Storage LLC, sent a letter to lawmakers in December, suggesting that the site would be a great temporary dump site for waste ultimately bound for the long-delayed permanent repository planned for Yucca Mountain, the Deseret News reported last week.

Letter: Treating teachers better behooves us all: 1. You are not offering enough money. Teachers are the most intelligent people in our society; when they discover they will lose financially, they will not come to Vegas;

Editorial: Chalk one up for industry: Of course, Bush said Kempthorne was chosen to succeed Gale Norton because he would help "develop the energy potential of federal lands and waters in environmentally sensitive ways" - as if Bush has exhibited any knowledge of environmentally sensitive ways to manage the nation's natural assets.

Letter: GOP's defense is just new McCarthyism: If step one - blame Clinton - doesn't get any traction, step two is to attack the person and call him/her a traitor and unpatriotic. This is not going to work anymore. Joe McCarthy tried that approach and didn't work in the long run, but he did ruin a lot of innocent lives, most of whom were patriotic Democrats. Of course, with our current batch of Democrat wimps in Congress, I guess the GOP will get away with it for a while.

Death takes its toll on Las Vegas old-timers: Wally Pinjuv, Davey Pearl and Herb Tobman - three familiar faces at the annual Las Vegas Old Time Reunion - died.

Editorial: Managing disaster on a different level: While taking care of pets sounds like a minor detail in the face of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack, officials noted that many residents who refused to evacuate during Hurricane Katrina had stayed behind because there was no one to rescue their pets.

Editorial: Urgent need for a new plan: A constitution was indeed drafted and ratified by the people in October, but it was not signed by any representative of Sunni Muslims, a signal blow to unity right from the start. A Parliament was indeed elected, but when it was sworn in last week, it quickly adjourned without appointing a prime minister, president or cabinet positions. It is impossible to predict when or even if this Parliament - with the majority Shiites and minority Sunnis deeply mistrusting each other - will form a government, ratify and amend the constitution and finally put an end to the power vacuum in ...

Tom Gorman looks at the new Southwest, where desert solitude and beauty give way to development: They've been living at the mountain's edge for nine years, sharing the neighborhood with coyotes and desert tortoises, rabbits and quail.

Letter: Country comes first, not individuals: Herein lies one of our biggest problems in America. We feel the president and our government must do everything for us. We want Medicare, prescription drug benefits, retirement security, protection from disasters involving floods, earthquakes and hurricanes, crop and industry support, lower utilities, safe roads and shorter work weeks.

Brian Greenspun on where newspaper readers should seek the truth: With apologies to President George H.W. Bush and with thanks for my opening line, I will heed my wife's admonition and give it a rest on the Royal Links Golf Course-city of Las Vegas story that seems to have created quite a stir among the landed gentry at the Review-Journal.